Shoes, a camera lens, beer cans and plenty of Styrofoam coolers were pulled from the El Camino Real Paddling Trail as part of a cleanup effort that removed 425 pounds of garbage from the waterway on Sunday.
The six-mile stretch of the scenic El Camino Real Paddling Trail was especially full of paddle boards, kayaks and canoes carrying more than 55 volunteers as they made their way from Fisherman’s Park in Bastrop to the Colorado River Refuge in the Tahitian Village to collect bags and bags of trash.
The garbage pickup was part of the Keep Bastrop County Beautiful effort that focused on a section of the river that locals said was dangerous and dilapidated, although recent efforts from the community have already showed massive improvements to the area including a new paved section of roadway getting down to the refuge parking area and additional patrolling in the areas volunteers said were once over run with people drinking.
Some of the 85 volunteers who showed up that day said they wanted to keep the momentum going and hoped more people would ride the river and hike in nearby trails, while others came who had never set foot on the Trails before.
Suzanne Holt, who collected 17 pounds of trash, said she was out because she loved to kayak and loved a clean river and therefore wanted to come down and help with the effort.
Catina Lowe, a 17-year-old from Bastrop, was also in the mix.
“One of my friends invited me over and I thought it would be fun to pick up trash. Sometimes I come down here with my brother to fish,” she said after removing her five-pound garbage bag from a weigh station.
Dorothy Skarnulis, KBCB chair, said while the litter-removal was a big help, recent heavy rains have washed much of the trash downstream, to other counties and much of what was collected on Sunday probably came from Travis County upstream.
The effort has recently gotten a lot of attention in Bastrop after a meeting was held in June to organize the various groups with stakes in the area and to promote the cleanup effort of the Lost Pines Nature Trails.
“I’ve been here for three years and the way this community handled this issue is the best I’ve ever seen,” said Carlos Liriano, a volunteer and owner of Lost Pines Toyota. “It’s a really beautiful park. The river brings in 2,000 visitors a year. They’re put in at the Bastrop launch in a really nice area and they get out here and the environment was not conducive.”
He said before people started to talk about fixing the area he was afraid to have his daughters go on the river alone because of harassment from people who go down to sections of the trail to party.
The group hopes to have more meetings in the future to discuss other garbage collection projects and how they can maintain the facility so they won’t have to go through the huge cleanup effort again.
“Everyone has a goal and that’s preservation. It’s crucial not only for the people, but for the birds and the critters that are down here,” said Priscilla Jarvis.
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